Millais PRB

The Ransom (1860-2) - John Everett Millais

Blatty - Dimiter and More

I started and put aside the new novel of William Peter Blatty, Dimiter, this summer (Academy Award for 'The Exorcist,' co-writer of the Pink Panther screenplay, 'A Shot in the Dark') and just returned to a slower, more in-depth read. Below is the beginning of an interview with Blatty. I think you will find him, and his deep Catholic faith, riveting:

St. Teresa of Avila

Entering Stella Maris Monastery Chapel atop Mt. Carmel that looks graciously down upon Haifa in Israel, a stillness prevails. One painting honors St. Teresa of Avila, the saint whose feast day is today. Other famous Carmelites are honored there also.

My first in-depth time with St. Teresa came when two monks of Holy Cross Abbey, Father Edward and Father Andrew, led an ecumenical group of clergy in a read-through of her Interior Castle. For two Cistercians introducing a variety of Christian ministers to the practice of contemplative prayer, it was a natural choice.

Pray for us, St. Teresa, that we may learn to be still in a world of distractions.

Hymn

O Loveliness exceeding

All loveliness I know,

In exile here below.

What more, I pray Thee, Jesus,

What more have I to learn?

Save yet to love increasingly,

With pure love to yearn,

Save yet to love Thee ever,

With deeper love to burn.

O bind me ever closer,

My nothingness transcend,

May I be never parted

From Being without end.

What more can I desired now

Save, Lord, to see Thy Face

And there at last in heaven above

To build my nesting place,

And there at last forever

To find my resting place.

St Teresa of Jesus

Tr. Teresa of Jesus, O.C.D.

Taken from Carmelite Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours, Rome, Institutum Carmelitanum 1993.

A Heresy in Haut-relief

A timely piece by Conrad Black on the realities of the Scimitar here.

Millais PRB

Autumn Leaves (1856) - John Everett Millais

Rossetti PRB

Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah (1855) - Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Compare and Contrast

Today's PARADE Magazine lead story from Lincoln, Nebraska, We've Found Peace in This Land, on the one hand, and this story from Saudi Arabia, Conditional Release for 12 Filipinos accused of Proselytizing.

Thus, PARADE shows that it now believes it can lead popular opinion for the reason, I hazard to surmise, that it thinks Americans have reached the tipping point regarding religion: it just doesn't matter.

Far more important is that threadbare notion of liberal multiculturalist doctrine, "immigration". But, whatever you do, keep far away from any substantive theological discussions with your new neighbor from the Middle East. You will find that your belief in the Holy Trinity is an abomination to the Scimitar.

And, while I'm at it, your Vice Liberal Multiculturalist President still pulls out some Christian theological terms occasionally for the benefit of his threadbare party here.